Following a year of consultation and development, Queen’s Engineering has launched its platform detailing equity, diversity and inclusion in the Faculty.
“The process of defining our goals as a community – even just putting a shape to the issue – has been a considered one, starting back in June of 2020 with the #ShutDownSTEM movement and a series of public meetings on diversity in STEM,” said Kevin Deluzio, Dean of Queen’s Engineering.
“Those sessions revealed some significant gaps at Queen’s Engineering – and, coupled with a student-led project to share the stories of marginalized students on Instagram, really woke me up to the fact that while Queen’s prides itself on our legendary community spirit, some of our community might not feel included.”
Now, a project to shape EDI activity at Queen’s Engineering is being launched.
“Engineering for Everyone is the Queen’s Engineering EDI platform,” Dean Deluzio explains. “It’s a web presence that helps give shape to our past actions, and also future goals, in equity and diversity. E4E – as we’re calling it – sets out four broad organizational principles for our activity in this area, and provides some sense of where we have made progress in the recent past. A framework for equity and diversity – which will ‘live’ on the E4E pages – will provide tangible goals that Queen’s Engineering will work toward.”
“It will be a system to not only share our aspirations, but to hold us accountable for living up to the ideas we present. As engineers know, a plan is only worth as much as its execution – so this will be a space, going forward, where you can measure progress.”
The Queen’s Engineering community is invited to not only visit the page, but sign up to become part of the EDI initiative at Queen’s Engineering. As its framework evolves, the Faculty is running a broad consultation with its community, with all welcome to participate on the ThoughtExchange platform.
